Drugs’ classification:
Here’s a rough guide to the
Many of the inmates feel unjustly treated when sentences can vary so much from court to court, and as over 50 per cent of prisoners are in on drug-related charges, comparisons are made all the time. A few admit to having got off lightly, while most feel hard done by.
5.00 pm
The man who was sentenced to five years for attempting to murder his mother-in-law turns out to be another unusual case. This particular inmate hit his mother-in-law when she refused to allow him access to visit his children. She collapsed and was taken to hospital. As she didn’t die, and the police didn’t have proof that he intended to murder her, the charge was dropped to aggravated burglary and he was sentenced to five years. It would take a trained legal mind to understand how the second charge came about. The prisoner explains that when he went in search of his children, he entered his mother-in-law’s house when she had not invited him in – and this offence is aggravated burglary.
DAY 185 SATURDAY 19 JANUARY 2002
2.00 pm
I was hoping to see Mary, Will and James today, but the authorities have decreed that I’ve used up all my visits for this month, and therefore can’t see them until the beginning of February.
3.00 pm
This week’s football match has also been cancelled, so once again I come face to face with the prisoner’s biggest enemy, boredom.
DAY 186 SUNDAY 20 JANUARY 2002
10.51 am
Mr Hart (an old-fashioned socialist) visits the hospital to tell me that there’s a double-page spread about me in the
I am surprised how many prisoners visit me today to tell me what they think of Eamon. Strange phrases like ‘broken the code’, ‘not the done thing’ come from men who are in for murder and GBH. After Belmarsh, Fletch, Tony, Del Boy and Billy said nothing, while Darren, Jimmy, Jules and Sketch from Wayland also kept their counsel. Here at NSC, I trust Doug, Carl, Jim, Clive and Matthew. And they would have stories to tell.
4.00 pm
I’ve started a prison tea club as I love to entertain whatever the circumstances. Admittedly it would have been impossible at Belmarsh or Wayland, but as I now reside in the hospital, I am even able to send out invitations. Membership is confined to those over the age of forty.
My guests are invited to attend ‘Club Hospital’ on Sunday between the hours of 4 pm and 6 pm. They will be served tea, coffee, biscuits and scones supplied by Linda. The current membership is around a dozen, and includes David (fraud, schoolmaster), John (fraud, accountant), John (fraud, businessman), Keith (knowingly in possession of drugs), Brian (ostrich farm and chapel organist), Doug (importing cigarettes), the Major (stabbed his wife), the Captain (theft, drummed out of the regiment), Malcolm (fraud) and Carl (fraud).
The talk is not of prison life, but what’s going on in the outside world. Whether the IRA should be given rooms in Parliament, whether Bin Laden is dead or alive, the state of the NHS and the latest from the Test Match in India. All of my guests keep to the club rules. They remove their shoes and put on slippers as they enter the hospital, and no smoking or swearing is tolerated. Two of them will be leaving us next week, Keith will have served five years, and Brian nearly three. We raise a cup to them and wish them luck. Carl and David stay behind to help me with the washing-up.
DAY 187 MONDAY 21 JANUARY 2002
730 am
I’m becoming aware of the hospital regulars: five prisoners who turn up every morning between 7.30 and 8 am to collect their medication. I couldn’t work out why these five need the same medication for something most of us would recover from in a few days. Sister has her suspicions, but if a prisoner complains of toothache, muscle sprain or arthritis, they are entitled to medications that are opiate based – for example codeine, co-codamol or dextropropoxyphene. These will show up as positive on any drugs test, and if a prisoner has been on them every day for a month, they can then claim, ‘It’s my medication, guv.’ However, if an inmate tests positive for heroin, the hospital will take a blood sample and seek medical advice as to whether his daily medication would have registered that high. Several prisoners have discovered that such an element of doubt often works in their favour. Doug tells me that some addicts return to their rooms, flush the pills down the lavatory and then take their daily dose of heroin.
11.20 am
A lifer called Bob (twelve years, murder) is due to appear in front of the parole board next week. He’s coming to the end of his tariff, and the Home Office usually recommends that the prisoner serves at least another two years before they will consider release. This decision has recently been taken out of the hands of the Home Office and passed to the parole board. Bob received a letter from the board this morning informing him he will be released next Thursday.
Try to imagine serving twelve years (think what age you were twelve years ago) and now assume that you will have to do another two years, but then you’re told you will be released on Thursday.
The man is walking around in a daze, not least because he fell off a ladder yesterday and now has his ankle in a cast. What a way to start your re-entry back to Earth.
MAY 188 TUESDAY 22 JANUARY 2002
11.00 am
Andrew Pierce of
4.00 pm
Among my afternoon post is a Valentine’s card, which is a bit like getting a Christmas card in November, one proposal of marriage, one offer of a film part (Field Marshall Haig), a request to front a twelve-part television series
